It's a dark night and two young girls are running for their lives. One falls and makes her friend go on without her. For her there is no escape as their pursuers close in...

The following morning the body of the young girl is found in Bradfield's murky canal. DCI Thackeray, just back at work after a bungled operation left him critically injured, takes on the case in a town transfixed only by the chance of football glory. No one seems able to identify the body or offer any clue as to how she died. Even Thackeray's girlfriend, reporter Laura Ackroyd, seems distracted by the beautiful game and the newly appointed woman chairman who has infuriated the local football establishment simply by being there. The dead girl's chance of justice is looking bleak when, to the investigators' surprise, their two inquiries collide in a morass of corruption and violence which threatens to put Laura Ackroyd's life and DCI Thackeray's career in danger.